Don’t laugh, but
I accidentally encountered Snappy
Dressers while perusing other board games at Target. Let me set the scene.
While sauntering through the board game wall that had many great games on sale,
I made it to the card and compact games section. It’s the same at every Target:
the bottom half contains things like travel games and games stored in tins, and
the top half are card games like Uno and Skip-Bo. But something different
struck me about this section. Apparently, Target had changed over a few things
and received some new games. And in the top left corner hung this boxed card
game with cute art. It was called Snappy
Dressers, and was on sale for $2.49 (regular price $2.99). And when I
looked at how many players it stated, the box read “1-10”. This was a no-brainer:
I threw it in the cart, hoping that my $2.49 wouldn’t escape down the drain
once I played it.

ABOUT THE GAME

Snappy
Dressers is a deck of cards with peppy animals
dressed in fashionable clothing and carrying some kind of item like a gift or
guitar. The core mechanic of the game is that each card matches all the other
cards in ONLY one way. It could be the hat, scarf, glasses, shirt, pants shoes,
the item their holding, and also could mean the color of any of the clothes or
items.

In the box is a
fold-out rulebook that contains 10 games for any size group of players up to
10. There’s even a game for solo players! The games involve time limits, races
against opponents, and typical puzzle solving. Now what’s nice about any of the
games is you can modify them or even combine them; the deck is versatile enough
to do so.

SOLO PLAY

The solo game is
quite simple to learn and understand, but difficult. After shuffling the cards,
draw the first one and place it on the table: this is the middle card you’ll
build the grid from. Your goal is to
create a 3 by 3 grid where you have the one matching clothing or item in each
row, column, and diagonal. For example, in the first row you could have
matching colored hats while in the first column you match the card where the
animals are holding a gift.

Start of the solo play grid

If you want to
play the solo game casually (like I do), play with no time limit and allow
yourself to reshuffle the draw deck as many times as you want. Or for a tougher
challenge, set a timer or beat your best time. How hard, easy, or casual you
want to make the game is up to you.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I was surprised
by this game. Both the multiplayer and the solo game is very fun, especially if
you enjoy puzzle-like games and problem-solving under pressure. The art is
somewhere between elegant and campy or even a combination of both, and I mean
either as compliments. While the characters resemble animal hipsters, they are
neat to look at. The price is nice and Snappy
Dressers isgood addition to family game night or, for the single player,
something to quickly pass the time or a fast filler between longer games.

SCORE

4.0 out of 5 We
Roll Solos

PROS

Cheap!

Easy to learn

Fast games

Very portable

Variety of ways
to play

CONS

Instructions not
very clear on some games (but they make it easy to modify them)